Economics of Power, Knowledge and Time

Michèle Javary, Centre for Research on Innovation Management (CENTRIM), University of Brighton, UK

'Michele Javary takes on a major challenge in this book - the systematic analysis of the micro-foundations of capital and technological innovation in a way that takes into account the dynamics of the relationships between knowledge and time, power and knowledge, and power and time. Javary treats capital as a socio-economic phenomenon; one that is intimately linked to knowledge and to the scope of the options available for future economic development. She highlights the essential role of money-capital circulation time in forging the character of socio-economic institutions and their consequences for the selection of new technologies and for labour. Technological change in the electricity industry in the United Kingdom provides the historical material for a very insightful reinterpretation of the insights of Commons, Marx, Veblen, and others and of the implications of market liberalization. This book offers a new and much-needed understanding of the political-economy of technological change in modern times. This book should be required reading for all those with an interest in technological change, the management of innovation, and the organisation of the economy.'

• Contents: Foreword 1. Introduction 2. Power, Technology and Institutions in the Process of Capital Formation 3. A Critique of the Marxian Framework for the Analysis of Technology and Organization 4. Technology, Organization and the Turnover Time of Capital: The Transformational and Distributive Capacities of Socio-economic and Technical Systems 5. States and Markets Transformational and Distributive Capacity: Political Governance in the United Kingdom 6. Political Governance, Technology Selection and Endogenous Money: The Making of State-of-the-Art Technology in Electricity Generation 7. Conclusion Bibliography Index